Agents Hit the Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Shortly After the L.A.
City Council Bars New Facilities for a Year to Write Better
Regulations.

The gap between state and federal drug laws became apparent again
Wednesday when federal agents raided 10 local medical marijuana
facilities only minutes after the Los Angeles City Council placed a
moratorium on new facilities so rules could be drafted to better
regulate them.

The ban is for one year, but the council can extend it for another
year.

The city move was widely applauded by medical marijuana activists who
believe that having a solid set of rules will help prevent future city
crackdowns and ensure that dispensaries remain open.

[snip]

Drug Enforcement Administration officers served a search warrant on
facilities across Los Angeles County, including the California
Patients Group in Hollywood, said DEA spokeswoman Sarah Pullen. The
timing of the raid was not intended to coincide with the council vote,
she said.

"These are ongoing enforcement operations. As far as we know, we've
been planning this for some time," Pullen said.

Washington -- Backers of a proposal that would have blocked federal
authorities from interfering in state-approved medicinal marijuana
programs, stung by a disappointing defeat in the House, are zeroing in
on freshmen Democrats such as Rep. Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton who
opposed the proposal.

The proposal, which advocates have introduced for several years, would
have barred the Drug Enforcement Administration from stopping the
medicinal use of marijuana in the 12 states including California where
voters or the legislature have moved to legalize such pot use.

But the House voted 262-165 to defeat the bipartisan amendment offered
by Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington
Beach (Orange County).

The medicinal pot forces, who cite public opinion polls and votes of
the public in California, among other states, as they lobby lawmakers,
were particularly angry that freshman Democrats, including McNerney,
voted late Wednesday against the proposal, which was an amendment to
the annual Justice Department spending bill.

[snip]

McNerney, who alone among the Bay Area's all-Democratic House
delegation voted against the measure, tied marijuana use to other
illegal drugs.

"We are facing a drug crisis with meth and other drug use on the rise.
Until we get a handle on the crippling drug use in our society, I
cannot support the relaxation of current drug policy," McNerney said
in a statement.

[snip]

"Not only does this amendment hurt law enforcement's efforts to combat
drug trafficking, but it sends the wrong message. Marijuana is the
most widely abused drug in the United States," said Rep. Rodney
Frelinghuysen, R-N.J.

Smoking cannabis increases the risk of schizophrenia by at least 40%
according to research which indicates that there are at least 800
people suffering serious psychosis in the UK after smoking the drug.

Mental health groups called on the government last night to issue
fresh health warnings and launch an education campaign to advise
teenagers that even light consumption of the drug could trigger long-
term mental health problems. The findings came after a rush of
ministers declared their cannabis-smoking pasts and an order from the
prime minister for officials to consider whether the drug should be
reclassified amid fears about its more potent "skunk" form. Last night
the Home Office said the research would be considered in that review.

The study, an analysis published in the Lancet medical journal of
previous research into the effects of the drug on tens of thousands of
people, provides the most persuasive evidence to date that smoking
cannabis can cause mental illness years after people have stopped
using it.

The overall additional risk to cannabis smokers is small, but
measurable. One in 100 of the general population have a chance of
developing severe schizophrenia; that rises to 1.4 in 100 for people
who have smoked cannabis.

But the risk of developing other psychotic symptoms among people who
smoke large quantities or are already prone to mental illness is
significant, the researchers say.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted the resolution during its June
21-26 annual meeting in Los Angeles, calling for a "new bottom line"
in drug policy that "concentrates more fully on reducing the negative
consequences associated with drug abuse, while ensuring that our
policies do not exacerbate these problems or create new social
problems of their own; establishes quantifiable, short- and long-term
objectives for drug policy; saves taxpayers money and holds state and
federal agencies responsible."

Sponsored by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, the resolution
states that the drug war costs $40 billion annually but has not cut
drug use or demand. It slams the Office of National Drug Control
Policy's (ONDCP) drug-prevention programs specifically, the agency's
national anti-drug media campaign as "costly and ineffective," but
called drug treatment cost-effective and a major contributor to public
safety because it prevents criminal behavior.

"This Conference recognizes that addiction is a chronic medical
illness that is treatable, and drug treatment success rates exceed
those of many cancer therapies," the document states.

The resolution condemns mandatory minimum sentences and incarceration
of drug offenders, particularly minorities, and called for more
control of anti-drug spending and priorities at the local level, where
the impact is most acutely felt.

"U.S. policy should not be measured solely on drug-use levels or
number of people imprisoned, but rather on the amount of drug-related
harm reduced," according to the resolution. The document calls for
more accountability among federal, state and local drug agencies, with
funding tied to performance measures, more treatment funding,
alternatives to incarceration and lifting the federal funding ban for
needle-exchanges.

The resolution, which will be used to guide the U.S. Conference of
Mayors' Washington lobbying on addiction issues, passed with minimal
debate, clearing two committees and the general assembly by unanimous
votes.

Perceptions can vary widely in the drug war. A Washington, D.C.
publication that looks inside Beltway politics featured a rather
light cover story on "The Marijuana Lobbyist," as if it's hard to
believe that someone actually does this job. But, another
publication featured a rare story critical of a leading U.S.
presidential candidate who lobbied for a notorious pharmaceutical
company in recent years, even after talking tough about drugs for
his whole career. That notorious pharmaceutical company, by the way,
was fined heavily last week for promoting a legal drug, but no
company representatives will see any jail time.

The last two selections also show how two jailed border patrol
agents are polarizing law enforcement observers across the country.
More members of congress, including those perceived as liberal, like
U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, are expressing support for the border
patrol agents, who shot a suspect and then tried to cover up the
incident, while some supporters of law and order still insist the
law has to apply to everyone, including law enforcement officers.
It's a shame jailed non-violent drug offenders don't garner so much
attention and serious consideration. Without the drug war,
particularly the war on cannabis, the border agents would not have
found themselves in such an unfortunate situation.

So this is how he is: The chief lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy
Project has short, clean-cut blond hair, and wears crisp, dark suits
and conservative red-and-blue patterned ties. There is not a hint of
dope pusher about him. He's 28, married with three children, and
possesses a boyish face, easy laugh and driven demeanor. He doesn't
even have a tattoo.

And his office? Downtown Geekville. His desk is neat and tidy.
Volumes of Riddick's Senate Procedure and Deschler-Brown Precedents
of the U.S. House of Representatives are displayed prominently on
it. Like other buttoned-up lobbyists, he dines at locales such as
Bistro Bis, The Monocle and Sonoma.

His only nod to liberal living is that he lives in Takoma Park, Md.,
a hippyish community where people stick anti-war and "Impeach Bush"
cardboard signs in their front lawns.

Last week, Showtime aired "In Pot We Trust," a documentary that
shines light on Washington's marijuana lobby by spending days with
Houston and four chronically ill patients who rely on marijuana but
are tripped up by federal narcotics laws. The youthful lobbyist
walks the halls of the Rayburn House Office Building and has a
chance encounter with the chief opponent of the marijuana lobby,
Rep. Mark Souder ( R-Ind. ), who closes a door on him. Souder
insists there is no such thing as medical marijuana.

Houston also has hugfest encounters with lawmakers who support the
cause, such as Rep. Maurice Hinchey ( D-N.Y. ), Ron Paul ( R-Texas )
and Sam Farr ( D-Calif. ).

On Oct. 23, 2003, Rudy Giuliani appeared with Rep. Curt Weldon in
suburban Upper Darby, Pa., to announce a new program -- called "Dime
Out a Dealer" -- that was designed to combat the growing scourge of
prescription drug abuse by offering $1,500 rewards to anyone who
turned in a pusher.

"Congressman Weldon's new program helps us go after the real
villains here, the illegal dealer," Giuliani said, praising both
Weldon ( R-Pa. ) and Purdue Pharma, the Stamford, Conn., drugmaker
that was underwriting the program, according to a news release. "By
doing so, we ensure that the patients who require these same
life-saving and enhancing medicines are not denied access based upon
the illegal conduct of others."

The appearance was one in a series of efforts Giuliani undertook
over a five-year period after leaving City Hall in 2002 -- from
image-building and security-consulting to behind-the-scenes
lawyering - -- that helped Purdue grapple with the fallout from
widespread abuse of its blockbuster painkiller, OxyContin, by
focusing attention on street criminals rather than corporate
misconduct and lax regulation.

In May, however, the company and three top executives agreed to pay
a $640-million fine and plead guilty to fraudulently marketing the
drug between 1995 and 2001 by minimizing its addictive potential.
Federal prosecutors said scores had died and many more became
addicted, and with Giuliani now running for president, the plea deal
he helped negotiate has drawn new attention from some OxyContin
critics who say he provided a "smoke screen" that deflected
attention from the over-marketing and under-regulation they blame
for the crisis.

"The country was being devastated, continues to be devastated, and
his function was to convince the public that there wasn't a problem
with the drug," said Marianne Skolek, a New Jersey nurse whose
daughter Jill died in 2002 of heart failure after she was prescribed
OxyContin for a herniated disc. " ... He is not a hero to the
thousands of parents who have lost kids or whose kids are in rehab
facilities as a result of Purdue peddling this drug."

The Deal Ordering $634.5 Million Over OxyContin's Marketing Is One
Of The Largest Such Fines

ABINGDON, Va. --A pharmaceutical company and three executives were
fined $634.5 million Friday for the deceptive marketing of
OxyContin, a painkiller that reaped billions for the company and
misery for its victims. Before accepting a plea agreement between
federal prosecutors and Purdue Pharma, Judge James Jones said he was
troubled by the lack of jail sentences for three company officials.

"While this may not be a popular decision, my job is not to make
popular decisions but to follow the law," Jones said.

Earlier in the day, the three Purdue executives sat impassively
through emotional statements by people who blame them for the
overdose deaths of their loved ones. Other speakers recounted their
own near-death experiences with addiction to a potent painkiller
hailed by the company as a miracle drug in the fight against pain.

One woman brandished an urn holding the ashes of her cremated son at
the defendants.

"This is from your drug, OxyContin, and here he is, in this
courtroom," said Lee Nuss of Palm Coast, Fla., whose 18-year-old
son, Randall, died from an overdose. "Here he is, for you all to
see."

Friday's sentencing in U.S. District Court in Abingdon ended a
lengthy federal investigation that forced guilty pleas from a
company that has long argued it should not be held responsible for
what happens when its painkiller is abused.

Washington -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, normally a target
for criticism from outspoken conservatives, is being hailed as an
unlikely hero by the political right for joining them in calling for
President Bush to free two U.S. border agents convicted of shooting
a suspected drug smuggler.

The case of agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos has become
a cause celebre for conservative talk radio, bloggers and
politicians. The agents were sentenced in October 2006 to 12 and 11
years in prison, respectively, by a federal judge in El Paso, Texas.
Supporters say the initial verdict and the sentences were
unbelievably harsh, an example of overzealous prosecution and of
misplaced government priorities.

The critics of the sentence, many of whom opposed the failed
immigration reform bill that Feinstein backed, also say the incident
shows the U.S.-Mexico border is out of control because of drug
smuggling and illegal immigration.

The two agents admit they shot and wounded unarmed drug smuggling
suspect Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks as he fled from them
after crashing a van loaded with 743 pounds of marijuana. He fled on
foot, they caught him and scuffled. He escaped and refused their
order to stop as he ran toward the Mexican border.

One of the odder controversies swirling these days is the bitter
criticism being flung at Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney for the
Western District of Texas, which is based in San Antonio and
includes Austin. Sutton's shortcoming, it appears, is his strict
enforcement of the law even when the law-breakers are Border Patrol
agents.

Sutton, appointed by President Bush, prosecuted the two agents for
shooting at and wounding a fleeing but unarmed drug suspect and then
lying about it in 2005.

However, it wasn't Sutton who convicted them; a West Texas jury did
that after a 2=-week trial laying out all evidence. The agents are
Jose Alonso Compean, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence, and
Ignacio Ramos, who is serving an 11-year sentence.

Among many Americans alarmed about the nation's porous border with
Mexico, Compean and Ramos are seen as martyrs, unjustly prosecuted
and imprisoned by an over-zealous prosecutor while trying to protect
the country from drug runners.

Sutton, though, told the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington
this week that Compean and Ramos "are not heroes. They deliberately
shot an unarmed man in the back without justification, destroyed
evidence to cover it up and lied about it."

The agents contended that they saw an object in the suspect's hand
that looked like a gun. But they first made that claim a month after
the shooting, Sutton said.

The state probe of an Edenton police detective facing felony
criminal charges was sparked by allegations he planted criminal
evidence on several suspects he arrested, court documents show.

The State Bureau of Investigation's application for a search warrant
also indicates that Michael Aaron Davidson -- charged July 10 with
altering evidence in a criminal investigation -- has been
investigated multiple times during his law enforcement career for
allegations that include missing money, use of excessive force and
planting evidence. The investigations occurred while Davidson was a
police officer with the Kinston Police Department and a deputy with
the Tyrrell County Sheriff's Office, the application states.

Davidson, 32, was arrested and charged last Tuesday before being
released on $1,000 unsecured bond. He is currently on administrative
leave from the Edenton Police Department.

The application, filed with a Superior Court judge July 9, also
lists allegations of misconduct during Davidson's employment in
Edenton. Three years before Davidson was hired by the Edenton Police
Department, he was investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation
while he was an officer in Kinston, according to court documents.

That probe was prompted by Davidson's arrest of Claude O'Neal
Petteway in 2000. According to the search warrant application,
Petteway alleged that Davidson planted evidence on him.

Petteway told investigators that he was beaten by Davidson who took
a crack pipe from his police car and charged Petteway with
possessing drug paraphernalia.

Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said Thursday the officer,
whom she didn't identify, signed out the drugs from the department's
evidence room and replaced it last week with imitation cocaine.

The officer has been suspended, she said, and the matter has been
turned over to the FBI for further investigation. Meanwhile, the
department will continue to review whether the officer is suspected
in other illegal activities, she said.

Bully-Cummings would not reveal the officer's specific assignment,
but she did say it wouldn't raise suspicion for him to sign out
actual drugs. Bully-Cummings said the criminal case in which the
cocaine was evidence had ended before they discovered the theft.

The Washington State Patrol Will Do Almost Anything to Bust a Pot
Grower

On July 11, Washington State Patrol troopers found 8-year-old
Chandler Osman in the cab of a truck that had just crushed her
grandfather to death. Larry Maurer, 63, was trying to repair the
vehicle after it broke down coming over Snoqualmie Pass. When he
unhooked the driveline, the tractor rolled over him. How did
troopers console the little girl? By questioning her, raiding her
home, and arresting her parents.

You see, Chandler reportedly admitted that her mother and father,
Rainee and Bruce Osman, grew marijuana--as medicine--in their Kent
home. Washington State Patrol Lt. Jeff Sass says the topic came up
when a female officer asked Chandler questions intended to comfort.
"Her number-one concern was to get the girl home without upsetting
her," Sass told The Stranger. The female officer inquired, "Where
does mommy work?" to which Chandler replied: "Mommy doesn't work.
Daddy doesn't work. Daddy grows medicine for mommy," Sass says.

A routine background search under the parents' names would have
revealed the couple was arrested for growing marijuana in 2005. But
search returns would also have shown no criminal charges were filed
against the couple because they were authorized by their doctor to
cultivate marijuana under Washington's Medical Use of Marijuana Act,
passed in 1998.

Rather than trust records showing that the parents were abiding by
the law, rather than check to make sure their pot paperwork was
valid, rather than get a warrant before entering the home, and
rather than take any humane step to comfort the grieving family, WSP
troopers immediately dispatched several patrol cars to search the
family's apartment.

"An officer pushed [my wife] into the house, flipped her around, and
handcuffed her," explains Bruce Osman. "Then they slammed me against
the wall and told us to shut up, and dragged us out of our house
onto the steps of our apartment." He continues, "They went in and
out of the house several times, and said they were waiting for a
search warrant."

The Osmans, who are both disabled from hepatitis C and use marijuana
to curb nausea and wasting syndrome, were not allowed to reenter for
four hours while officers ransacked their apartment, removed the
plants, and seized $2,000. KING-5 TV ran sympathetic footage of the
couple's upturned house the next day.

CALEXICO - U.S. Border Patrol agents in inland California are
catching more and more drugs welded into gas tanks, secreted under
upholstery or stacked brazenly in car trunks and driven across the
desert.

The Border Patrol's El Centro Sector, which includes 72 miles of
California's inland stretch of the border and areas north --
including sections of Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- has
seized hundreds of more pounds of cocaine and thousands of more
pounds of marijuana than neighboring sectors have since the current
fiscal year began in October.

Border Patrol and other law enforcement officials say the federal
government's unprecedented buildup of agents along the border, a
greater focus on border enforcement in San Diego and Arizona, and
grisly cartel wars in Mexico may all be driving the sector's
exponential increase in confiscated drugs over the past few years.
The trend may indicate a shift in international drug trafficking
toward the inland region or just a larger dent in the vast amounts
of undetected drugs flowing up from Mexico along inland routes.

"It is clear that your numbers of seizures of at least marijuana and
cocaine are up, way up, but the problem is trying to explain that,"
said Scott Stewart, a senior terrorism and security expert with
Strategic Forecasting. The Texas-based firm, known by the nickname
Stratfor, provides geopolitical analysis to international companies.

As the Los Angeles' City Council votes, the Drug Enforcement Agency
conducts raids. The DEA seldom goes after individual patients, but
in Canada there is growing evidence that law enforcement is looking
for any excuse to bust medicinal marijuana patients.

From the newspaper of Canada's capitol comes a reefer madness
column. "...as many as one in four cannabis users is genetically at
risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder"
The actual risk, according to peer reviewed medical journal
articles, is about 1 in 6,000 users. The studies also make clear
that the psychotic disorders could be pre-existing - the users
self-medicating with marijuana. B.C. Bud and skunk are 25 times
stronger than resin sold a decade ago? Drug War Distortions
http://www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion11.htm states "According
to data from the Potency Monitoring Project, the THC content of
commercial-grade marijuana increased from 1997 to 2000 for
commercial-grade (4.25% to 4.92%) and for sinsemilla (11.62% to
13.20%)" Hmmm. If we multiply 11% by 25 times we have the best bud
at an amazing 275% THC! Oh, the newspaper is the Independent on
Sunday, which has a separate, independent, staff from the weekday
Independent. Margret Kopala seems to have a hard time getting
anything right.

On the other hand, the Health Editor for the Independent tells it as
it is.

Your commentator and others from the DrugSense Weekly staff watched
Virginia Resner receive the Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement
in the Field of Citizen Action in 2001. She has passed on to a
better place.

LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Justice Department is unleashing a potent
new weapon in its battle against California's hundreds of medical
pot clinics, threatening landlords with arrest and property seizures
for renting to tenants who flout federal drug laws.

Intensifying its crackdown on pot sales that are legal under
California law but illegal under U.S. law, agents of the Drug
Enforcement Agency executed search warrants Wednesday in raids on 10
marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles.

As agents were moving in, Los Angeles' City Council voted 11-0 to
tentatively approve a one-year moratorium on more medical marijuana
stores, which have exploded in number in the past two years.

Federal officials estimate there are 400 storefront and office
operations selling medical marijuana in Los Angeles and L.A. County,
up from 20 two years ago and more than double the number at the
start of the year, DEA Special Agent Sarah Pullen said. Law
enforcement officials contend the sales have become a source for
recreational pot users.

"It's clearly not about compassion or care at this point," Pullen
said. "It's about money."

The most serious threat to California's voter-approved pot sales
came in a letter last week from the DEA to 150 property owners or
managers informing them that a tenant is operating a marijuana
dispensary on the property in violation of federal law.

The letter warns that California's pot law, approved as Proposition
215 a decade ago, "is not a defense to this crime or to the seizure
of the property." Landlords, the DEA warned, could lose their
buildings and land and face felonies with 20-year prison sentences.

[snip]

Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a
pro-marijuana lobby, called the warning an "attempt by DEA to
intimidate these operators and force these facilities to close."

His group has not opposed the moratorium, reasoning it could be a
step toward city regulations recognizing legal pot sales. He said
the DEA's timing appeared intended to shut down as many clinics as
possible just as a city moratorium takes effect, preventing stores
from reopening at another location.

L.A. Councilman Dennis Zine, sponsor of the moratorium, wrote DEA
Administrator Karen Tandy on Wednesday protesting the focus on
landlords. He asked "that you abandon this tactic."

"Voters in California and in Los Angeles support the medical use of
cannabis and want safe, well-regulated access," he said.

Scientific developments have established that as many as one in four
cannabis users is genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia
or a related psychotic disorder.

Given recent statistics from the United Nations citing Canada as the
industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis, this information
should set alarm bells ringing. Instead, Canada's mainstream media
responded as if someone had passed out The Happy Hippy Hymn Book
that no one noticed is 10 years out of date.

"Legalizing pot makes sense," intoned a National Post editorial.
Comparing cannabis with alcohol and tobacco, it asked where's the
"health footprint of our love for the weed?" A Globe and Mail
article titled "The True North Stoned and Free" giggled about
Canada's "little pot habit." Then there were the columnists. Suffice
to say, only one mentioned the word "psychosis" and that, only in
passing.

[snip]

To its credit, Paul Martin's Liberal government quietly withdrew its
marijuana decriminalization bill shortly after publication of my
2005 column. I like to think that someone in that government had
finally managed to do their homework. But did anyone else?

Apparently not, even though the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry
featured marijuana and psychosis as the cover story of its summer
2006 issue. Recently, Addiction magazine predicted that a quarter of
new cases of schizophrenia by 2010 will result from cannabis
smoking. In March of this year, the Independent -- a major British
newspaper - -- retracted and apologized for its stand on
decriminalizing marijuana: "Record numbers of teenagers are
requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly
potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a
decade ago."

In a week in which Gordon Brown signalled a toughening of the law on
cannabis and Labour MPs queued up to confess to smoking dope in
their youth - a dozen cabinet ministers at the last count - there
has been a widespread assumption bandied about that the country is
in the grip of an epidemic of cannabis-induced psychosis.

But there is no evidence that cannabis poses a greater threat to
health today than it did 30 years ago, and reports that stronger
forms of the drug, called skunk, have 25 times the potency are
wildly exaggerated. The joint, symbol of peace and love in the
1960s, has become a totem of degenerate Britain - increasingly
linked with mental breakdown and axe-wielding maniacs.

The Prime Minister, who has ordered the second review of the
classification of cannabis in two years, is said by insiders to want
to reverse the decision of the former home secretary, David
Blunkett, who downgraded the drug from class B to class C in 2004.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which examined the
issue 18 months ago, will be asked to do so again. It concluded in
its report in December 2005 that the strength of cannabis resin
(hash) had changed little over 30 years and was about 5 per cent
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Skunk, it found was 10 to 15 per cent
THC - - two to three times as strong, not 25 times.

Professor Leslie Iversen, a pharmacologist at Oxford University,
said the widespread belief that skunk was 20 to 30 times as powerful
was "simply not true".

The biggest change over recent decades has been in the strength of
indoor-cultivated herbal cannabis, but even this has only doubled to
12 to 14 per cent THC. Although exceptionally strong skunk can be
found on the market in Britain, it always has been available,
according to reports from the UN Drug Control Programme.

On the question of psychosis, the advisory council was clear.
Cannabis use may worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia and lead to a
relapse in some patients. But on causation, it said: "The evidence
suggests, at worst, that using cannabis increases the lifetime risk
of developing schizophrenia by 1 per cent."

It added that more than three million people were estimated to have
used cannabis in the previous year, but "very few will ever develop
this distressing and disabling condition".

Virginia Resner, a longtime advocate for drug policy reform and the
families of imprisoned drug offenders, died July 18 after a lengthy
battle with breast cancer. She was 60.

Ms. Resner was co-author of the book "Shattered Lives: Portraits
from America's Drug War," which won the Robert C. Randall Award for
Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action from the Drug Policy
Foundation in 2001. The book documents how families are affected by
federal drug enforcement policy.

She was also president of Green-Aid, an Oakland medical marijuana
legal defense fund that champions the plight of Ed Rosenthal, a
former High Times columnist who twice has been convicted of
violating federal drug laws for growing medical marijuana.

"She was a very compassionate and very caring person," said
Rosenthal. "Some people get bogged down in the intricacies of
issues, but not Virginia. She had a good strong sense of herself and
what she believed in."

Ms. Resner was born in San Francisco and graduated from Galileo High
School. Her father was Herbert Resner, a prominent labor lawyer who
worked with longshoreman union activist Harry Bridges.

"She was a real red-diaper baby," said Ms. Resner's brother, Hillel
Resner. "A lot of her values and interest in social justice came
from our father."

In the early 1990s, Ms. Resner's boyfriend, Steven Faulkner, was
arrested for drug dealing and sentenced to five years in prison.
Even though Ms. Resner did not know about Faulkner's activities,
federal agents raided her house searching for evidence. She became
involved with a group that helps families of drug offenders and
fought against mandatory drug sentencing minimums.

She also helped gain clemency for Amy Pofahl, a Los Angeles woman
who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for conspiracy in her
estranged husband's ecstasy operation. President Bill Clinton
granted Pofahl clemency in 2000 after she served nine years.

To all her activist endeavors, Ms. Resner brought energy, a strong
sense of purpose and outstanding organizational skills, Rosenthal
said.

"Virginia had a very strong commitment to social justice and was
very well loved," said Mikki Norris, Ms. Resner's co-author on
"Shattered Lives." "She had a real solid inner strength and wisdom."

She is survived by her brother.

A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday at Temple
Emanu-El, 2 Lake St., San Francisco.

Donations can be sent to Coming Home Hospice of San Francisco,
Green-Aid or Temple Emanu-El.

In Thailand, the Justice Ministry is again looking at the impact of
the deposed Thaksin government's war on drugs, which killed 2,500
drug suspects who were summarily executed by police. Former
attorney-general Khanit na Nakhon was invited to head a special
committee, focusing on "studying in depth the Thaksin Shinawatra
government's anti-drugs policy, in which more than 2,500 suspects
lost their lives." Human rights observers welcomed the announcement,
but doubt much help will come from "police, who were suspected of
having a hand in most of the killings."

Methamphetamines is increasingly linked with HIV, according to a
study presented to the International AIDS Society (IAS) conference
in Sydney last week. "The effect of methamphetamine on behaviour is
disastrous for the gay population," said Professor David Cooper,
director of the National Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical
Research in Australia. "And I fear that young straight Australians
experimenting are also more at risk."

Police in Ottawa, Canada said this week that "drug use" is their
biggest problem, as arrests for cocaine soar. Recorded criminal
offenses in Ottawa rose across the board last year, but "violent
crime dropped seven per cent". Ottawa police had earlier claimed
that "criminal activity" was increasing in Ottawa. Others noted that
the price of cocaine has fallen, and "because it's so cheap, people
who didn't used to use are using." Ottawa city council was
criticized last month after voting to stop a sterile crack pipe
distribution program which was praised for helping stop the spread
of Hep C and HIV.

And we leave you with a remarkably lucid article from the New
Statesman in the UK. "Prohibition Has Failed, Just As It Did With
Alcohol." While there were but 10,000 "problematic drug users" in
the UK in 1971, now there are 300,000, which makes the Misuse of
Drugs Act of 1971 "one of the least effective pieces of legislation
ever enacted." Summarizing a report by the Royal Society of Arts
released last March, "The authors would deny it, but the logic of
these reports is that cannabis, cocaine, Ecstasy, heroin and the
rest should be legalised." Drug "prohibition has failed, just as
prohibition of alcohol once failed in America... Many - perhaps most
- users handle drugs without significant harm to themselves or
others."

The Justice Ministry is setting up a special committee to study the
Thaksin government's war on drugs and its impact on innocent
victims, so that proper financial help can be extended to them and
their families.

Deputy justice permanent secretary Charnchao Chaiyanukij said the
secretary-general of the Office of the Prime Minister sent a letter
to the ministry last week instructing it to set up the committee.

Mr Charnchao said the ministry had invited former attorney-general
Khanit na Nakhon to chair the panel.

[snip]

Working guidelines have already been drawn up for the committee. The
panel will focus on studying in depth the Thaksin Shinawatra
government's anti-drugs policy, in which more than 2,500 suspects
lost their lives.

[snip]

Angkhana Neelaphaijit, chairwoman of the Working Group on Justice
for Peace, said she welcomed the government's latest move.

However she was sceptical about whether the inquiry would receive
any cooperation from law enforcement agencies, particularly police,
who were suspected of having a hand in most of the killings.

A U.S. survey of young men newly-diagnosed with HIV shows that an
increasing number are using methamphetamines like the dangerous
stimulant ice, the International AIDS Society (IAS) conference in
Sydney has been told.

Between 2000 and 2005, the number of HIV-positive American men under
30 who also took club drugs rose from 1.7 to five per cent.

The study is one of the first in the world to strongly link
methamphetamines and HIV infection - a trend that leading Australian
HIV researcher Professor David Cooper believes could be fuelling the
resurgence of the virus here.

Australia's infection rates have almost doubled in the last seven
years and new figures also show an increasing number - now one in
eight young Australians - have had speed or the more potent ice in
the past year.

[snip]

Lead researcher Dr Christopher Hurt said while it could not confirm
that club drugs directly caused the infection, there were definite
increasing trends over time that couldn't be overlooked.

[snip]

Dr Hurt said previous studies had already shown that gay
methamphetamine users were more at risk of HIV infection.

[snip]

Prof Cooper, co-convener of the conference and director of the
National Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, said the
trend was alarming.

"The effect of methamphetamine on behaviour is disastrous for the
gay population," he said. "And I fear that young straight
Australians experimenting are also more at risk."

The number of drug charges Ottawa police laid for the possession,
trafficking and importation of cocaine jumped 57 per cent last year.

[snip]

While the dramatic increases could partially be attributed to
increased enforcement and attention by police, Chief Vernon White
said the statistics are an indication that the use of crack cocaine
is on the rise in Ottawa.

"It tells me that the concerns about drug use downtown are
absolutely right. That is probably our biggest challenge right now,"
said Chief White.

It is the third year in a row the number of charges laid in relation
to cocaine under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act have risen.
That number has more than doubled since 2004.

[snip]

The police statistics also showed a 28-per-cent increase in the
number of charges in relation to marijuana, and a 78-per-cent
increase in relation to a broad category labelled "other drugs."
Overall, drug charges were up 40 per cent last year.

Wendy Muckle, executive director of Ottawa Inner City Health, said
there's been a marked increase in the number of people using crack
in the city over the last couple of years.

[snip]

"It's a volume business now," Ms. Muckle said. "They sell smaller
amounts for less and because it's so cheap, people who didn't used
to use are using."

[snip]

Overall, the number of Criminal Code offences rose slightly in
Ottawa last year, although violent crime dropped seven per cent.

[snip]

Meanwhile, a group of social support and health organizations will
hold a meeting tomorrow night to discuss their next moves after city
council voted two weeks ago to kill the crack-pipe program.

The program saw the city making clean crack pipes available on
demand through the organizations, with the goal of reducing the
spread of HIV and hepatitis C among users. The organizations
supported the program because they believe, along with the city's
chief medical officer of health and an epidemiologist who studied
the program, that it was reducing the spread of disease.

Officials from the organizations have roundly criticized council for
the decision to kill the program, and have called on the provincial
government to strip council of its responsibilities as a board of
public health.

Almost anybody who takes a sustained, unprejudiced look at the
current drugs laws eventually reaches the conclusion that they are
hopelessly unfit for purpose.

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 must be one of the least effective
pieces of legislation ever enacted.

At that time, there were perhaps 10,000 problematic drug users in
the UK; now there are nearly 300,000.

The Downing Street Strategy Unit concluded that "government
interventions against the drugs business are a cost of business
rather than a substantive threat to the industry's viability".

[snip]

In March, a Royal Society of Arts commission - which included a
recovering addict, a senior police officer, a drug treatment
specialist and a Telegraph journalist - decided that "drugs policy
should, like our policy on alcohol and tobacco, seek to regulate use
and prevent harm rather than to prohibit use altogether". The
authors would deny it, but the logic of these reports is that
cannabis, cocaine, Ecstasy, heroin and the rest should be legalised.

The harm the various drugs do is irrelevant. Their prohibition has
failed, just as prohibition of alcohol once failed in America. Calls
for politicians to "get tough" are, as the RSA observes,
"meretricious, vapid and out of date".

[snip]

Stronger types of cannabis are now on sale, we are told, and
research shows a link with schizophrenia.

This is like saying Chablis should be banned because cognac is much
stronger and because some people become alcoholics, with dire
effects on themselves, their families and society.

[snip]

If we are trying to send "messages" to young people about the
dangers of drugs, as press and politicians claim, we do it in a
pretty confusing way. Many who try one class A drug without ill
effects may well conclude they can all be taken freely.

[snip]

Many - perhaps most - users handle drugs without significant harm to
themselves or others.

Four years ago today, I started this blog with the notion of maybe
posting something once a week or so. 2,378 posts and 1.7 million
page views later, I guess it's fair to say that this is an important
part of me.

Over the past 17 years since its creation, probably no other
initiative has done more in seeking to coordinate the resources of
federal, state and local law enforcement in the so-called War on
Drugs than the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program.

The Drug Czar's office has been caught - yet again - using taxpayer
money to influence elections. Tell your members of Congress to amend
federal law to prohibit the Drug Czar and his deputies from using
taxpayer money to lobby or campaign.

I am a federal medical marijuana exemptee in Canada and also retired
from law enforcement. Thus I was very pleased to read the
extraordinary common sense of Kathleen Parker.

Not only will North Americans benefit when adult marijuana use is
legalized, so will those who rely on steady access to appropriately
grown medical marijuana will benefit as well.

In a legal system, the medicine ( marijuana ) is distributed by
regulated dealers in a cross between pharmacies and adults-only
alcohol sellers.

Commercial production, when legal, is likewise motivated to operate
in regulated settings, so products can be as healthy as possible and
thus safer for the consumer or patient.

Those insisting on marijuana prohibition ignore the lessons of
history and are endorsing all production and commercial dealing be
100 percent unregulated and dealt totally on the street, often by
nefarious sellers whose product is unpredictable and who often
openly market to kids.

The primary obstacle to the Canadian government agreeably legalizing
and regulating the multibillion-dollar marijuana trade is
Washington, D.C.-inspired prohibition. Americans, if you lead, we
will follow.

The standard, schoolbook history of alcohol prohibition in the
United States goes like this:

Americans in 1920 embarked on a noble experiment to force everyone
to give up drinking. Alas, despite its nobility, this experiment was
too naive to work. It soon became clear that people weren't giving
up drinking. Worse, it also became clear that Prohibition fueled
mobsters who grew rich supplying illegal booze. So, recognizing the
futility of Prohibition, Americans repealed it in 1934.

This popular belief is completely mistaken. Here's what really
happened:

National alcohol prohibition did begin on Jan. 16, 1920, following
ratification of the 18th Amendment and enactment of the Volstead
Act.

Speakeasies and gangster violence did become familiar during the
1920s.

And Americans did indeed keep drinking.

But contrary to popular belief, the 1920s witnessed virtually no
sympathy for ending Prohibition. Neither citizens nor politicians
concluded from the obvious failure of Prohibition that it should
end.

As historian Norman Clark reports:

"Before 1930 few people called for outright repeal of the (18th )
Amendment. No amendment had ever been repealed, and it was clear
that few Americans were moved to political action yet by the partial
successes or failures of the Eighteenth. ... The repeal movement,
which since the early 1920s had been a sullen and hopeless
expression of minority discontent, astounded even its most dedicated
supporters when it suddenly gained political momentum."

What happened in 1930 that suddenly gave the repeal movement
political muscle? The answer is the Great Depression and the ravages
that it inflicted on federal income-tax revenues.

Prior to the creation in 1913 of the national income tax, about a
third of Uncle Sam's annual revenue came from liquor taxes. ( The
bulk of Uncle Sam's revenues came from customs duties. ) Not so
after 1913. Especially after the income tax surprised politicians
during World War I with its incredible ability to rake in tax
revenue, the importance of liquor taxation fell precipitously.

By 1920, the income tax supplied two-thirds of Uncle Sam's revenues
and nine times more revenue than was then supplied by liquor taxes
and customs duties combined. In research that I did with University
of Michigan law professor Adam Pritchard, we found that bulging
income-tax revenues made it possible for Congress finally to give in
to the decades-old movement for alcohol prohibition.

Before the income tax, Congress effectively ignored such calls
because to prohibit alcohol sales then would have hit Congress hard
in the place it guards most zealously: its purse. But once a new and
much more intoxicating source of revenue was discovered, the cost to
politicians of pandering to the puritans and other anti-liquor
lobbies dramatically fell.

Prohibition was launched.

Despite pleas throughout the 1920s by journalist H.L. Mencken and a
tiny handful of other sensible people to end Prohibition, Congress
gave no hint that it would repeal this folly. Prohibition appeared
to be here to stay -- until income-tax revenues nose-dived in the
early 1930s.

From 1930 to 1931, income-tax revenues fell by 15 percent.

In 1932 they fell another 37 percent; 1932 income-tax revenues were
46 percent lower than just two years earlier. And by 1933 they were
fully 60 percent lower than in 1930.

With no end of the Depression in sight, Washington got anxious for a
substitute source of revenue.

That source was liquor sales.

Jouett Shouse, president of the Association Against the Prohibition
Amendment, was a powerful figure in the Democratic Party that had
just nominated Franklin Roosevelt as its candidate for the White
House. Shouse emphasized that ending Prohibition would boost
government revenue.

And a House leader of Congress' successful attempt to propose the
Prohibition-ending 21st Amendment said in 1934 that "if (
anti-prohibitionists ) had not had the opportunity of using that
argument, that repeal meant needed revenue for our government, we
would not have had repeal for at least 10 years."

There's no doubt that widespread understanding of Prohibition's
futility and of its ugly, unintended side-effects made it easier for
Congress to repeal the 18th Amendment. But these public sentiments
were insufficient, by themselves, to end the war on alcohol.

Ending it required a gargantuan revenue shock -- to the U.S.
Treasury.

So, if the history of alcohol prohibition is a guide, drug
prohibition will not end merely because there are many sound,
sensible and humane reasons to end it. Instead, it will end only if
and when Congress gets desperate for another revenue source.

That's the sorry logic of politics and Prohibition.

Donald J. Boudreaux is chairman of the Department of Economics at
George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. His column runs twice
monthly.

Policy and Law Enforcement/Prison content selection and analysis by
Stephen Young (steve@drugsense.org), Cannabis/Hemp content selection
and analysis by Richard Lake (rlake@drugsense.org), International
content selection and analysis by Doug Snead (doug@drugsense.org),
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personal views of editors, not necessarily the views of DrugSense.

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